Seminar by- Anukriti, Boston College, 11th August, 2016 (Thursday) at 3:00 PM

 
Dowry: Household Responses to Expected Marriage Payments

by

 Anukriti
 Boston College

On

11th August, 2016 (Thursday) at 3:00 PM

Venue : Seminar Room (First Floor)
Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics

All are cordially invited

 

Abstract

Dowry is a ubiquitous feature of South Asian marriage markets. Using retrospective data on 39,544 marriages that occurred during 1960-2008, first we describe dowry trends in contemporary rural India. We find that average real net dowry has remained stable over time; however, there is considerable temporal and cross-sectional variation across religions, castes, and states. We then examine how dowry expectations affect household savings, parents’ labor supply, and child investments.